See that's what gets me... people making decisions based on feelings rather than facts.

Driving a car is one of the most dangerous things you'll ever do, yet you feel fine doing it.

Oh whatever, be humble. You haven't looked up any stats either. You have one story. That's not a fact, it's an anecdote.

Sure driving a car is dangerous, but it's an acceptable risk for the benefits it offers. Part of it also has to do with the fact that the explicit purpose of a car isn't to kill people, rather, it's a form of transportation.

Itís simple cost benefit, events like this past week's happen far too infrequently to justify arming students to the teeth. Most campuses prohibit the possession of firearms already; I'm defending the status quo. All I should have to do is present a reasonable theoretical case that a person carrying a firearm might cause more harm than good in the event of a shooter on campus. If we need numbers, then someone should look up some general statistics on firearm related accidents. An accident has the likelihood of occurring every day someone brings a firearm to campus. These large scale shootings only seem to happen every few years at the most.

Actually, given the rarity of the situation, you don't even need to do this. All you need to show is that there is an increased risk of tragedies occuring (accidents, shootings, etc.) as a result of increased guns on campus (whenever they occur--i.e., including those times when a shooter comes in), and that this increased risk is greater than the potential--and in my mind miniscule, given the aforementioned rarity--benefit of having armed students during these shoot-em-up attempts (and, though I doubt much benefit would result from armed students in non-attacker times, the rest of the time).

If every person had a gun on them at all times, you would have far less VTech/columbine type incidents, but far more isolated shooting incidents. It elevates every confrontation to a potentially life-ending situation, and also greatly increases the risk of accidental gun deaths. Do we want people to have guns on them while they're drinking 20 beers in a bar and looking for a fight? Do we want guns around children all the time? Do we want to sit in class surrounded by guns? I actually think in this one instance, lax gun laws contributed to the mass killing, because it would not have been particularly easy for a foreign loner with personality and social disorders to find guns and ammo on the black market in a small college town.

But shifting the debate from legal right to practicle effect doesn't sit well. The legal right is known, the practicle effect basically unknown. Trying to tackle the practicle consequences is like holding a 2 ton bowling with 2 fingers; it's beyond the scope of this thread. But nobody has yet given even one contrary example and I gave 2.